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THE PETE CORNISH PRECISION FUZZ P-1 - David has occasionally used Big Muffs custom made by Pete Cornish in his touring rigs. These have been referred to by various names, such as the Custom Fuzz, Precision Fuzz, Cornish Fuzz, P-Fuzz, or PC Big Muff. They were all essentially custom made versions of Big Muff circuits with Pete's improvements. He had some prior experience with the Big Muff before working with David Gilmour. In September 1973 he built a pedal board for King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp that included a Guild Foxey Lady fuzz pedal, which was simply a rebranded Triangle Big Muff made by Electro-Harmonix.
Before going into more detail, let's get this out of the way. There is a popular belief that David was a heavy user of Pete Cornish effect pedals. There indeed have been a few Cornish effects built into his live rigs throughout the years, but those were mostly used as backup pedals or alternatives. How much actual use they saw is debatable, but Phil Taylor said this in a reply to a poster on David Gilmour's website blog, circa 2008, who asked "which delivers the 'true' Floyd tone, the Pete Cornish P-2 or the newer G-2?".
Neither. David has almost never used Pete Cornish distortion pedals - a popular misconception. He has them in pedal boards, but only as alternates to his favorites, and as separate pedals. He has tried them (as he has many other makes: Rat, Boss HM2, etc.), but his choice is nearly always EH Big Muff, BK Butler Tube Driver, and, in the earlier days, a Fuzz Face or a Colorsound Overdriver - Phil Taylor
What I can say for a fact is that David did use a Cornish P-2 in his 1989 and 1990 Pink Floyd rigs, confirmed by the signal chain router visible in those concerts. It can be heard in both the Pink Floyd Live in Venice and Pink Floyd Live at Knebworth 1990 concert videos. David also used a Cornish G-1 for the 2005 Pink Floyd Live 8 reunion. He also used a Cornish P-1 briefly for his 2006 On and Island tour.
Likely the most well known of the Cornish custom fuzz pedals in the Gilmour world is his Precision Fuzz, or P-1 as it is known today. It was one of the first "boutique" custom made Big Muffs. Pete has given various accounts about when and how this originated. In a 1995 issue of Guitarist Magazine he said "March 7th, 1976 was when the very first drawings were done for the first board I built for Dave – that included a Cornish Custom Fuzz..." He has also said "The first version was called the Precision Fuzz and was unbuffered...The current P-1 is a buffered version of the original Precision Fuzz. Later after many mods and buffer additions for use a stand alone pedal it became the P-2. As these are gradual evolutions I don't have any specific dates."
Based on what other P-1 owners have told me Pete told them, he has given a variety of different accounts about how the Precision Fuzz originated, and a variety of dates - 1976, 1982, 1999, and 2007. He has stated the Custom Fuzz inside David's 1976 pedal board is the same as the P-1 sold today, and that the P-1 was "an exact clone of David's favorite Big Muff". He has also referred to the P-1 as his "original 1982 Precision Fuzz," and the P-1 "is my 1982 version of the pedal currently known as the P-2 following several tonal/gain changes over the succeeding years". Another time he said his "work on the Muffs was done in January 1999...and you can purchase one any time you like - it's called the P-1", which seems to contradict his other statements.
When I asked Pete about the origin of the 1976 custom fuzz/P-1 he gave me this account. Phil Taylor, David's backline tech, sent him seven Big Muff pedals of various makes and models. Each had a slightly different circuit inside, giving each a slightly different sound, as was common at the time. Out of this group, Pete said Phil asked him to select the one he (Pete) considered to be the best and to reproduce the sound for David. It was to have the following improvements: add power supply de-coupling, RF filtering, add unity gain buffers to the curcuit and bypass to maintain a constant high impedance signal load, improve the reliability, and reduce the PCB size, using the highest quality components that were available at the time. Pete then selected one that sounded best to him and created and new PCB layout, using the original component values, with all of his improvements. I have heard this same story relayed by Pete to other several other people I know, but he told one person it happened in 1999, and another that it happened in 2007.
Regardless of which story is the correct, true lineage, in 2006 Pete Cornish made a small run of the original Custom Fuzz/Precision Fuzz/P-1 in pedal form to sell to other musicians. It was simply labeled as "Custom Design" on the enclosure. Another short run was made in 2008 when it was renamed the P-1. Eventually the P-1 was added to the regular Cornish pedal line in 2013. It included a high quality double buffer and was built in a much sturdier enclosure than the stock Electro-Harmonix Big Muffs. Although Pete does not like to call what he makes "clones", the P-1 is very much a mid 1970s Big Muff circuit at its core, and a very good one. Having played the Cornish P-1for several years, I have found it to be remarkably similar in tone to some of my original 1973 era Violet Big Muff circuits, so I think the basic circuit component values are similar to one of those. The only notable difference is that the P-1 has significantly more gain on tap than any of my originals.
The EHX Ram's Head Big Muff reissue (2019) has a similar sound, as do many Big Muff replicas like the TopTone DG-1 (based on the Cornish P-2), Stomp Under Foot VRH (a violet Ram's Head clone), MJM Foxey Fuzz (a violet Ram's Head clone), Wren and Cuff Caprid, and Electric Orange Pig Hoof. The EHX Deluxe Big Muff (2014 model) can also be set to sound very similar to the P-1.
Shown above, left to right - A pedal version of the original Pete Cornish Custom Fuzz/Precision Fuzz. This one is owned by John Roscoe (ToneFromHeaven.com), and labeled "Custom Design". It was the first pedal version of the Custom Fuzz, built in 2006, and offered for sale to the public later that year as the P-1 shown in the middle photo. The one in the rack on the right belongs to David Gilmour, used in the control room of his Medina studio. These Cornish pedals have a plain, industrial look, but they are perfect for the hard life of a touring musician's gear, where all that matters is sound and reliability.
As stated previously, a Pete Cornish Custom Fuzz/P-1 was built into the 1976 pedalboard Pete made for David. A photo from Pink Floyd's In the Flesh tour rehearsal taken in late 1976 shows David's 1974 original Big Muff pedal on top of that pedalboard. It did not have the DG ORIGINAL label at the time, but it had the same Fuzz Face knobs, same rivet on top, and same black foot switch as it had in 2006 when it was first seen with the label. It was connected to the send/return jacks, along with an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress flanger. Tour photos from January through March 1977 show the same Big Muff was used throughout the tour. How much the Cornish Custom Fuzz/P-1 built into the board was actually used by David for the tour is unclear. It may have simply been used as a backup to the real Big Muff. It is also possible that David used both for the tour, with different settings for each.
In late 1977 the Custom Fuzz/P-1 was removed from inside the pedal board and replaced with another real Big Muff circuit. Some people have assumed the DG original Big Muff used on top of the board was the same one later built into the board, but that is not correct. The touring Big Muff has been seen intact, in its original enclosure, repeatedly since 1977. Pete does not simply drop a pedal into his custom pedal boards and plug it in. He removes the circuit from the original enclosure and integrates it into his pedal board power supply, buffers, and switching system. Pots have to be desoldered, power section altered, et cetera. My guess is this replacement was another Big Muff from David's collection that was modified to match the sound of his original 1974 Big Muff, or simply another similar sounding stock Big Muff.
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Shown above - Photos from January-March 1977 from Pink Floyd's Animals/ In the Flesh tour showing David's original "Ram's Head" Big Muff (right) and Electric Mistress (left) mounted on top of David's Cornish made pedal board during Pink Floyd's tour of Europe. These are the same Electo-Harmonix pedals seen in the London '76 rehearsal photo. The pedal board also included a built in Cornish Custom Fuzz (P-1) for a short period.
Shown above, left to right - Gilmours 1990 Knebworth pedal board with hand made Pete Cornish P-Fuzz (Precision Fuzz), a closeup of the P-Fuzz (simply labeled "Big Muff"), and the 1994 Division Bell rig with the P-Fuzz
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Shown above, left to right - An early Pete Cornish P-Fuzz (Precision Fuzz), and later version re-named the P-2 Fuzz, and a modern P-2 in a slightly different enclosure. Offered for sale to the public, the two P-2 versions on the right included a built in double buffer and a larger enclosure. Pete considered this an improvement over his original 1976 Custom Fuzz
Even though the Cornish P-1 did not last long in David's 1977 pedal board, and seems to have been absent from Gilmour live rigs for close to 30 years, it made a return in the 2006 Cornish Mk2 board used for David's stellar On and Island tour, Documented in the Remember that Night DVD and Live in Gdansk CD and DVD. That said, I think David's primary pedal for that tour was the B. K. Butler Tube Driver, not the P-1.
THE PETE CORNISH PRECISION FUZZ P-2 - At some point after 1982 Pete created what he considered an improved version of the original Precision Fuzz, with an improved tone control, less mid range scoop, and thicker lows. It had a passive treble cut control, similar to an electric guitar tone control. This evolution of the Cornish custom Big Muff was called the P-Fuzz or Precision Fuzz in its early incarnations, and later renamed the P-2. It was housed in a small gray hammerite enclosure. David added one to his giant touring rig for the 1989 leg of the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour, replacing the Ram's Head Big Muff. It was likely used for all the high gain solos, although there is no way to know for sure. Another version of the Precison Fuzz in a black enclosure replaced the gray one for David's 1990 Knebworth rig. It is documented that it was used for all the high gain solos in that concert. David blended the Precision Fuzz with the drive from a Mesa/Boogie Studio Preamp, which was used as an overdrive in his signal chain. It was used in a similar manner to how David later ran a Big Muff and Tube Driver together for a blend of the two sounds.
The black Precison Fuzz (P-2) appeared again for the Division Bell tour in 1994. Simply labeled as "Big Muff". The pedal was probably there as a backup for David's Sovtek Big Muff, as signal chains indicate it was not used for the main tour. It did not include Pete's buffer system, as David's custom pedal board already included the necessary buffers. An updated version was offered for sale to the public with Pete's dual buffer system around 2001, and is now simply known as the P-2. Around 1992 Pete also made one for Lou Reed.
THE PETE CORNISH G-2 - There was yet a third evolution of the Big Muff circuit created by Pete Cornish, the G-2 Fuzz. This version sounded very different from the P-1 and P-2, utilizing Pete's superb double buffer design and Germanium diodes, rather than Silicon found in most Big Muff circuits. Even though the circuit architecture is Muff-based and uses the same pcb as the P-2, I would not even classify it as a Big Muff sound. The component values are heavily modified, giving the G-2 more of a very unique overdrive-dirt pedal tone, with a very smooth and warm, amp-like distortion. It blends perfectly with a Tube Driver for many of David's Live 8 and 2006 tour lead tones.
The G-2 was in David Gilmour's effects boards from 2002 until around 2010, probably as an alternative to the Tube Driver. Phil Taylor has stated that most of the high gain guitar solos heard on the 2006 tour, documenetd in Gilmour's Remember That Nght and Live In Gdnask DVDs, were the Tube Driver. The P-1 was sometimes used for a few songs, like Comfortably Numb. I'm not sure the G-2 was used at all on that tour, but according to Pete Cornish, it was used for the Pink Floyd Live 8 reunion in 2005. The Live 8 solos could have been the Big Muff in David's Cornish board, but they sounded like the G-2+ Tube Driver combo to me.
For both the "Big" solo's, Money and Comfortably Numb, David Gilmour used the Pete Cornish G-2 as the main distortion, which was a departure from the Big Muff. Quite Frankly they were phenomenal tones on the Live 8 set. This incidentally was the same set up for the Strat Pack DVD - Pete Cornish
It is worth noting that each of these Cornish pedals originally included 'Fuzz' in the name, but after a debate began online about what constitutes a fuzz, muff, or distortion, Pete dropped the word fuzz and kept his simple alpha-numeric nomenclature as the name. Different people may have different opinions about what "fuzz" means, but these circuits are all simply different ways of amplifying and distorting a guitar signal.
Shown above, left to right - An early Pete Cornish G-2 Fuzz, and a later G-2 version in a different enclosure with "fuzz" removed from the name
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A CONFUSION OF MUFFS - Since Phil Taylor had a second Big Muff modified in 1974 or 1975 to sound exactly the same as David's original 1974 Ram's Head Big Muff, I assume that is the one that replaced the Cornish custom fuzz/P-1 in David's Cornish board in late 1977. I would also assume that the Cornish P-1/Custom Fuzz/Precision Fuzz sounds similar to David's original, but based on what Pete Cornish told me and others, that was not the case. However, according to Mike at AnalogMan, when he met with Phil Taylor in 2006 at one of Gilmour's On An Island concerts in New York, he got the straight scoop about David's Big Muffs. According to what Phil told Mike, the Cornish Custom Fuzz built into David's second pedal board sounded exactly like David's original 1974 Big Muff. According to an account I was told from someone who visited the Cornish shop, the schematic he was shown of the Big Muff circuit Pete Cornish traced for for the P-1 even has "David's favorite Muff" written on it. This begs the question - If the original custom fuzz sounded exactly like David's original, why was it replaced and why did David use one of his original Big Muffs on tour so often?
There are also several other Big Muffs used in David's later Cornish-made pedal boards - the revised 1978 Animals board, The Wall recording studio board, the small Wall touring boards, and the 2006 Cornish made Mk I all-tube buffered board. Each lists a Big Muff as a built in effect. These are usually labeled "Big Muff" in the effect chain lists from Pete Cornish and other sources, and labeled "Muff" on the pedal boards. The P-1 was originally labeled as a Custom Fuzz. We do not know if these were stock Big Muff circuits, or simply more circuits modified to sound exactly like David's original.
Any Big Muff at this time could have been modified to sound similar to another. It simply required using the same value resistors, capacitors, and similar diodes and transistors. Granted, the components had sloppy tolerances at the time, so to make an exact clone, each component needed to be measured to get the exact values, and use components of the exact same type. Even using the values marked on the components without measuring, one could get very close. Phil Taylor could have had any number of stock Big Muff circuits modified in this manner for David, all having his preferred sound.
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Shown above - The large Animals pedal board built by Pete Cornish to house and control David's pedals, modified for The Wall shows with a built in Big Muff. Note the "MUFF" label attached to the boards were sometimes used to describe the Pete Cornish custom fuzz pedals with circuits based on the Big Muff. We do not know if these were stock Big Muff circuits in these late 1977-1981 boards, or circuits modified to sound similar to David's preferred #1 Big Muff. Knob settings in the photos may not be David's actual settings, but if they are, and the pots are oriented in the standard position, these would be the settings:
Volume: 9:30 / 25%
Tone: 12:00 / 50%
Sustain: 4:00 / 90%
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Shown above - The small front stage pedal board used for the second half of The Wall show, also with a built in Big Muff. Note the tick marks on the middle photo, used to set the knob positions for the shows. The low volume and sustain settings seem to indicate the pots may have been wired in reverse of standard, but the fact that the sustain and tone positions are reversed from where they are on the actual pedal makes it hard to determine where the zero true points would be. Since it is unlikely the volume pot was set at nearly ten, if wired in reverse, I surmise that the pots are all oriented 90 degrees counter clockwise in the board. This would also explain why Pete ran the name labels vertically on this board (they are oriented properly on the large Wall board shown above). This would make the knob settings:
Volume: 10:30 / 35%
Tone: 1:30 / 65% (treble left/bass right)
Sustain: 1:00 / 60%
Shown above - Bob Bradshaw photos of David Gilmour's 1987 touring rig with a Ram's Head Big Muff on the upper right of the pedal board. This is the same touring Big Muff seen on top of the Animals pedal board in 1977 (Thanks to John Roscoe, host of Tone From Heaven and Bob Bradshaw for the photo).
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Shown above - Video captures of the touring Big Muff with black foot switch from a 1987 back stage tour crew film. Note the white tic marks indicating David's settings. The original EHX pots (potentiometers) and knobs were aligned differently from each other, and the tone pot was wired in reverse of modern Big Muffs. Pete Cornish aligned and wired all of the pots in the same modern orientation when he replaced them, so below are the actual 1987 settings for the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour.
Volume: 10:30 / 35%
Tone: 1:00 / 60% (treble left, bass right).
Sustain: 10:30 / 35%
Note that the sustain is relatively low on the Big Muff, and using the muff alone will not get you very close to some of the high gain lead tones heard on the tour. That is because David often blended the Big Muff with an overdrive to smooth out and EQ the tone, as well as using a Boss GE-7 to fine tune the EQ of the Muff. For this tour he used a TC Electronic Booster + Line Driver & Distortion (BLD) and a Mesa/Boogie rack head to blend with his high gain distortions, like the Muff. The gear and settings above are what I use to replicate those tones with the Big Muff.
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Shown above - The photo on the left is from the 1988 Pink Floyd tour, showing the DG original Ram's Head. In the middle is a blurry screen capture from DavidGilmour.com of what appears to be a Ram's Head Big Muff, spotted on the floor of Davids Astoria floating recording studio during the On An Island recording sessions in 2006. To the right is another 2006 screen grab of David's Triangle Big Muff from the Remember That Night DVD.
Thanks to - Mike/Analogman, for relaying his conversation with Phil Taylor in 2006. Pete Cornish, for answering my many annoying questions! Bjørn Riis, for additional info and our many emails on this subject. Phil Taylor, for intruducing David to the Big Muff, eventually resulting in Comfortably Numb, which sparked my love of Pink Floyd, my addiction to everything Big Muff, without which the Big Muff Page and this website would never exist.
CONTINUE - TO PAGE 3 OF THE GILMOUR BIG MUFFS
HISTORY OF THE BIG MUFF PART 2 (Russian)
HISTORY OF THE BIG MUFF PART 3 (modern USA)
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